Adjusting expectations

So... my life is a little bit, a lot, crazy.

Luckily, it's the good kind of crazy, but still, stress and time-shortages are still stress and time shortages.

I've been at this parenting gig long enough to know that when the crazy level amps up, it's time to lower the bar.



This blog space has fallen to pieces over the last couple of years.  It's had at least a dozen identity crises and lost almost all of its readership.  I've been averaging 1 comment every 6 weeks.  Go me.

But I fear that if I drop this ball altogether, my record-keeping will suffer horrendously.  There needs to be a place that I keep a record of my life and my story of mothering my crazies while also attempting to keep myself growing, my household reasonably intact, and my marriage strong.  I can't be maintaining this space for anybody's benefit besides my own and my family's right now.  So the lousy comment stats may be okay after all.

But here's what lowering the bar is going to look like.  I can't plan, and I can't edit.  I can't be consistent, and I can't be thorough.  I will not manage to have a picture for every story or anecdote I want to share, and I may not manage to provide much of a story for all the pictures I may want to share here.  I anticipate we will mostly devolve into image-less text posts and nearly text-less image posts.  It'll still be a record of my life and our story, and it'll still be valuable.

Bar lowered.  Carrying on.

Mini Makeover for my bookshelves

While I had 3M poster-hanging tabs in the house, I elected to tackle another project.  When I ordered the boys' Valentines this year I also ordered some fancy gold-marbled handmade paper to line the inside of the living room bookshelves with.  The bookshelves got a bit beat up with our cross-country move, and a part of me still wants to paint them, but since Mr Renn is not on board with that idea, I decided I could at least line their innards and get a bit more contrast.  I used 8 pieces of this paper, and most of a box of 48 poster tabs.

My bookshelves have been pretty neglected since I first styled them after our move here.  They collect a lot of things I need to put out of the reach of little hands.  And they don't get thoroughly dusted as often as they should.  They'd kind of become a literal black hole in the room.  They're so dark.  So I hoped that lightening up the back would help everything pop a bit more.  I wish I could have found wrapping paper or a rolled paper wide enough for this, but as it was I had to deal with piecing the paper into place and camouflaging seams.




They really are decent, hardworking pieces of furniture.  No particle board here.  And I didn't want to damage the wood, which is why I used the 3M strips.  I should be able to remove everything with no residue if I want to go back to the wood.  (Or if we ever decide to paint or re-stain.)  I took everything off the shelves, removed the shelves, and gave it all a thorough cleaning.



Then I pieced the paper in there, cutting as needed in an attempt to minimize waste of paper, but also to minimize the placement of visible seams.



Once the shelves were back in place, I did a little strategic planning.  All of my styling had to accomodate covering up seams in the paper.



And we have plenty of books to cover up whatever needed it.  There's not actually room left to do a great deal of "styling" per se, we definitely have bookshelves for the purpose of housing books, but I think it turned out all right.  The picture doesn't quite capture the difference, but the shelves are visually lightened up quite a bit.  And it was a relatively inexpensive, totally reversible change.

The magic timer

With the introduction of a television large enough to be a temptation this past Christmas, I knew I needed to establish a way to control screen time.  But it needed to work for kids who are too young to set a timer, read an analogue clock, or even know their numbers.  Also - it needed to not be hideous.

I'm kind of in love with my solution:
The Audible 12-inch Time Timer



So long as we installed it high enough to keep Sir O from sabotaging it, it was perfect.  You just set it for any length of time up to 1 hour, and the kids can gauge how much time is left by watching the red disappear.  There's an optional alarm that can go off when time is up, and then it's pretty clear to everyone that it's time to turn the TV off.  And it's not like I'm springing it on the unsuspecting children.  Everyone's happy.  Well no, they're never happy to turn the TV off.  But at least they aren't as prone to act as though I'm asking them to peel their own skin off.  I'll take it.

sprouts

Guess what's in the mail, headed my way?  Lame as it may sound to you, I'm excited to have everything I need to grow my own micro greens and sprouts.  Seeds, planters, kits... bring it.

The reason I'm excited?  Besides all the nutritional reasons, I always fall in love with how Aran Goyoaga uses microgreens to style her food photography.  I like to be fancy.  And her work is so pretty it makes me think that sprinkling my food with micro greens will be akin to sprinkling it with fairy dust.

image via cannellevanille.com

There was a story in Martha Stewart Living recently that made growing my own seem so doable, that I just had to give it a try.  The stakes are really super-small.  And I have the perfect sunny windowsill in my kitchen.

image via marthastewart.com

image via marthastewart.com

I found this windowsill planter from West Elm that's the perfect size for my windowsill.  Two of these should transform the window above the kitchen sink into a little garden of micro mini cute.

image via westelm.com

And so I continue to fight the winter doldrums by pretending it's spring.  Spring Spring Spring Spring Spring.........

If, perchance, my ambitions come to fruition and I find myself with actual mini-greenery adorning my windowsill, it will certainly appear in my instagram feed.

New Curtains

According to my brother, these are my new "Where's Waldo" curtains.  But naysayers aside, our living room has been crying out for curtains for a long time.  Most of our living/working/coming and going is visible from this window, and while I'm fine having it open during the day, having the option to close it off at night has been sounding nice for over a year now.  I wanted to do something pretty graphic, to keep the room from feeling too stuffy.  I tend to lean toward either really fancy traditional or else really glam modern shapes in furniture.  And one is much easier to find in online classified ads than the other, so the room was teetering on being a little too granny chic.

I was going to sew pinch pleat drapes myself, and was a little nervous about wielding vast quantities of fabric without them winding up crooked, but the fabric I had chosen was pricey enough that I kept holding off on the purchase.  Then, thankfully, I stumbled across the etsy shop LaFortune Linens, and ordered these lined with pleats and eliminated all my worries.

I had to give up my plans for silk and go with more of a canvas fabric, but I decided that might be a good thing for introducing more whimsy and less fanciness into an already too-formal room.  And the finished and shipped curtains cost about as much as I was preparing myself to spend on fabric alone.

I lucked out in that the Restoration Hardware curtain rod I had been crushing on went on sale right after I ordered the curtains.  It was still a lot to pay for hardware, but it's such a pretty thing, I love it.

Mr Renn is hoping they will help keep the room from losing so much heat at night.  I love how much contrast they bring to the space.  And they are helping me feel motivated to tackle a long list of projects needed to make the whole room come together.  If only time and money weren't such hard commodities to come by.  I think everyone is having that struggle right along with me.

But while I nurse Bunny and wrangle my crazy boys, I will have some awfully happy curtains to cheer me up now!